Grace

The highest form of dispassion born of pure discrimination has arisen in your heart, O Rama, and it is superior to dispassion born of a circumstantial cause or an utter disgust. Such dispassion is surely due to the grace of God. This grace meets the maturity of discrimination at the exact moment when dispassion is generated in the heart.
(p. 30)

The supreme is attained by one who through self-effort and right actions has earned the grace of the Lord. Past habits and tendencies are very strong. Hence mere self-effort is inadequate.
(pp. 482-483)

Rama:

Holy sir, you said that Prahlada attained enlightenment by the grace of lord Vishnu. If everything is achieved by self-effort, why was he not able to attain enlightenment without Vishnu's grace?

Vasishta:

Surely, whatever Prahlada attained was through self-effort, O Rama, not otherwise. Vishnu is the self and the self is Vishnu: the distinction is verbal. It was the self of Prahlada that generated in itself devotion to Vishnu. Prahlada obtained from Vishnu, who was his own self, the boon of self-enquiry; and through such enquiry attained self-knowledge. At times one attains self-knowledge through self-enquiry undertaken through self-effort; at times this self-effort manifests as devotion to Vishnu who is also the self, and thus one attains enlightenment.
(p. 256)

©1999 by Deb Platt